Minnesota Department of Agriculture's Food Protection Rapid Response Team

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Project Abstract The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA), Office of Partnerships (OP), in collaboration with the Office of Foods and Veterinary Medicine (OFVM), is announcing the availability of up to nine cooperative agreements to be awarded under a Limited Competition. These cooperative agreements are intended to develop, implement, maintain and sustain multi-jurisdictional Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) that operate using Incident Command System (ICS)/National Incident Management System (NIMS) principles and a Unified Command structure to support integrated all-hazards preparedness, response, mitigation and recovery/prevention efforts for food/feed within the national integrated food safety system. As a recipient of funding under RFA-FD-08-007 and RFA-FD-11-013, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) is eligible to apply for this Cooperative Agreement. The funding provided under the previous Cooperative Agreement has been used to develop significant response capacity related to foodborne illness outbreaks and other food safety events and has also been used to develop a detailed Improvement Plan for the FDA Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards (MFRPS) and make substantial progress towards compliance with the standards. Continuation of the funding will allow the MDA and the Minnesota RRT to build on work and accomplishments from the previous project period in improving the national integrated food safety system. MDA seeks to further develop its coordination of federal/state/local food/feed emergency response efforts through participation in the Rapid Response Team (RRT) Capacity Building and Mentorship Program and meeting the objectives of the RRT Program 5 Year Plan. MDA will focus on improving rapid response capabilities in six key program areas: mentorship, capacity data capture and assessment, post response and prevention, program maturity and maintenance, and sustainability. MDA and its federal, state, and local partners in response will also continue to develop, train and implement a food protection RRT that incorporates ICS concepts and contribute to a national framework of RRT best practices through the RRT Best Practices Manual, multi-agency exercises, and other collaborative projects.